Has Nutrien Ltd.'s (TSE:NTR) Impressive Stock Performance Got Anything to Do With Its Fundamentals?
Nutrien (TSE:NTR) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 11% over the last three months. We wonder if and what role the company's financials play in that price change as a company's long-term fundamentals usually dictate market outcomes. Specifically, we decided to study Nutrien's ROE in this article.
Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.
Check out our latest analysis for Nutrien
How Is ROE Calculated?
The formula for return on equity is:
Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity
So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Nutrien is:
26% = US$6.9b ÷ US$27b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2022).
The 'return' is the yearly profit. So, this means that for every CA$1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of CA$0.26.
What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?
We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. Based on how much of its profits the company chooses to reinvest or "retain", we are then able to evaluate a company's future ability to generate profits. Assuming all else is equal, companies that have both a higher return on equity and higher profit retention are usually the ones that have a higher growth rate when compared to companies that don't have the same features.
A Side By Side comparison of Nutrien's Earnings Growth And 26% ROE
To begin with, Nutrien has a pretty high ROE which is interesting. Additionally, the company's ROE is higher compared to the industry average of 17% which is quite remarkable. Under the circumstances, Nutrien's considerable five year net income growth of 68% was to be expected.
Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Nutrien's growth is quite high when compared to the industry average growth of 32% in the same period, which is great to see.
The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. What is NTR worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether NTR is currently mispriced by the market.
Is Nutrien Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively?
The really high three-year median payout ratio of 108% for Nutrien suggests that the company is paying its shareholders more than what it is earning. In spite of this, the company was able to grow its earnings significantly, as we saw above. With that said, it could be worth keeping an eye on the high payout ratio as that's a huge risk. Our risks dashboard should have the 2 risks we have identified for Nutrien.
Additionally, Nutrien has paid dividends over a period of five years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders. Upon studying the latest analysts' consensus data, we found that the company's future payout ratio is expected to drop to 22% over the next three years. Still forecasts suggest that Nutrien's future ROE will drop to 13% even though the the company's payout ratio is expected to decrease. This suggests that there could be other factors could driving the anticipated decline in the company's ROE.
Summary
Overall, we feel that Nutrien certainly does have some positive factors to consider. Namely, its high earnings growth, which was likely due to its high ROE. However, investors could have benefitted even more from the high ROE, had the company been reinvesting more of its earnings. As discussed earlier, the company is retaining hardly any of its profits. Having said that, on studying current analyst estimates, we were concerned to see that while the company has grown its earnings in the past, analysts expect its earnings to shrink in the future. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.
Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
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